12 weeks to 720, then 3 weeks to 750 - My story of willing & winning

I finished writing the GMAT a few days ago and scored a 750 (Q49, V42, IR 6, AWA 6).

This was my target score when I started preparing for the GMAT back in February of this year. In my first attempt (May 4, 2019), I managed to score a 720. While it was a good score, I knew I could do better with some smart tweaks and better time management. So I decided to take another shot at the GMAT, and below is the story of how I went from not thinking about GMAT 4 months back to breathing GMAT for the last 4 months and going from 0 to 720 to 750 in this time period.

If you’re interested in everything I did and my experiences with GMAT preparation, please read on. If you’d rather want to read my review of study materials and get some quick tips on preparation, skip to the sections titled 'Study Material Review' and ‘Tips for Success (Questions to ponder on).’

Index

• Study Material
• Study Duration
• Preparation Debrief
• Practice Test Performance
• Test Day Experience
• Study Material Review
• Tips for Success (Questions to ponder on)

Study Material

Study Material

OG 2018
OG Verbal Review 2018
OG Quant Review 2018
Kaplan GMAT Plus Prep 2019 (Hard copy)
Manhattan SC Guide (Fifth Edition)
Manhattan Quant Guides
Manhattan Advanced Quant Strategy Guide
GMAT Club Math book v3

Test Series

First GMAT Attempt: Veritas Mocks 1-7, GMATPrep Official 1-4
Second GMAT Attempt: GMAT Prep Official 5-6

Online Question Banks

First GMAT Attempt: Veritas Question Bank (Free), eGMAT Scholaranium (Free Question Bank)
Second GMAT Attempt: GMAT Club Question Bank, Target Test Prep (7-day free trial)

Study Duration

12 weeks for first attempt + 3 weeks for the second attempt
I studied while working a full-time job and dedicated about 3-4 hours on weekdays and 6-8 hours on weekends (including full-length practice tests). I studied more on public holidays and took some days off here and there to study as well.

Preparation Details

First Attempt Prep

I started my preparation with a couple of baseline tests (see more about performance in the next section), to understand where I stood. After that, I quickly moved on to understand the basics of the different sections and the nature of the various types of questions asked within each. For this, I used the Kaplan book. It’s a good resource to familiarize yourself with what the GMAT tests and is a good start to adapt to the ‘GMAT way of thinking.’

Early on, I identified that I needed to devote more time to SC in Verbal and DS in Quant and practiced these two sections a bit more than the other two. But eventually, as I moved further in my preparation and closer to the actual test, I tried to focus on all sections equally. I attended a couple of eGMAT webinars on SC and RC as well.

I started with solving the OGs. This might seem odd, but I skipped the basic OG in my first round of practice entirely, and straight-up solved the Review OGs. I went through these rather quickly and managed to finish both in about 7-10 days. Overall, I personally felt that the review OGs were quite easy, and only a few questions towards the end seemed challenging. This reaffirmed my faith that the idea of skipping the main OG was worth the trade-off; I wanted to use my time judiciously and wanted to move quickly to more challenging problems that would push my thinking and conceptual applications levels.

After exhausting the review OGs, I turned to online Question Banks. There are some really great resources available for free, namely the Veritas Question Bank and the eGMAT Question Bank. I would create practice tests out of the available questions, doing a 36-questions Verbal set, followed by a 31-question Quant set (since that was what was going to be my order), or I’d split Verbal and Quant practice between my morning and evening study sessions (with the full-time job during the day).

After about four weeks of practicing and studying like this, I added regular weekly tests to my preparation. The idea was to start building test stamina; I figured I had around 10 weeks until the actual GMAT. Having initially exhausted all the free CATs available from different market players, I turned to a paid test series. After reading online reviews and talking to some peers, I went ahead with Veritas because of the overall positive feedback and an offer that reduced the cost of the 6-test pack (test 1 is free) from $49 to $18! Along with this, I bought GMATPrep Tests 3 & 4 and decided to solve those two on the two Saturdays before my actual GMAT since I wanted to simulate a more realistic GMAT environment closer to the test.

I took all these tests with the same seriousness that I would have taken the actual GMAT - minimized entropy by taking the tests at the same day and same time slot as my actual GMAT schedule, did not pause tests, using the same break time strategy that I was going to in the actual test, did not use the phone, etc.

Second Attempt Prep

Post my first GMAT attempt, one of the biggest challenges I faced was that I had run out of most of my prep resources - question banks and test series -. I didn’t want to solve old problems again as I feel that novelty is the biggest quality of GMAT and the best way to improve your understanding of concepts is to challenge yourself with newer problems.

Given that I would reattempt the GMAT in less than 4 weeks, I did not bother about scrambling for multiple resources. After my first attempt, I knew I had two major improvement areas - Quant ability and time-management skill. I had an interesting chat with ScottTargetTestPrep from Target Test Prep, and decided to give their prep material a shot. I solved half of their paid Question Bank over an extended weekend (within my 7-day trial period). This was a good confidence boost, and at this point, I decided to start solving GMAT Club Question Bank. I had heard a lot about the quality of questions and felt like challenging myself. I would aim at solving 1-2 Quant CATs a day, devote time to a thorough analysis, and do a Verbal CAT once every 2-3 days. During this period, I also solved the ‘Hardest SC,’ ‘Hardest RC,’ ‘Hardest CR’ PDFs circulating on GMAT Club forums. I occasionally turned GMAT Club CATs into full test simulations by taking a Verbal CAT immediately followed by a Quant CAT.

I only took two full tests leading up to my second attempt - GMAT Prep Official Test 5&6. I took one test 7 days before my actual GMAT and the other 3 days before my GMAT. (I know this is contrary to popular advice, but I wanted to shake things up a bit from the previous time, where my approach was more conventional. This approach definitely felt more ‘my style,’ and I liked being engaged in prep right until the test day.

Practice Test Performances

Test Day Experience

I will only talk about my second attempt here, as I have written about my first attempt in another post.

I had booked a GMAT slot at the same test center, so getting there was a familiar task this time around and definitely reduced the anxiety a bit. I had booked a late-morning slot and reached an hour earlier than the scheduled time. The test center was not as busy as usual, and after completing the formalities, I actually got to start the test about 45 minutes earlier than my scheduled time.

The order I decided to go with was Verbal, Quant, IR/AWA.

Verbal - I was stumped for a while on the first couple of questions, probably just a case of nerves and starting a cold engine. But after that proceeded smoothly through the next dozen or so questions. I was more careful with my time-management this time around and kept pushing through questions with an eye on the clock, trying not to get sucked into analysis-paralysis on a few CR questions.
I got a total of 4 RC passages, two of which were comfortable to read through, one that appeared in the third quarter of the test was a really long historical-political read with slightly tricky questions, and the last one was a short passage that was fairly simple. Overall, I felt like I had done as well or maybe slightly better than the last time.

Quant - First 5 questions were really easy. In fact, I had to double-check each question, especially the DS questions, to see if there was any trap. Again, in this section, I focused on time management, which had cost me dearly last time in Quant. I managed to follow the time-limits I was working with. Still, I encountered a tricky word problem around the midway mark and went into circles on it before realizing the craftily worded question language. I believe I spent about 5-6 minutes on this question (bad idea, and something that I had planned not to do, but I guess that’s the treacherous beauty of GMAT; it will suck you in right when you think you’re above the surface).
From there on, I was playing massive catch-up games, and towards the end, I had about 8 questions left with 14 minutes to go! I powered my way through some tricky modulus and algebra inequality questions. The third and second last questions were arithmetic questions with some hefty calculations involved, and I tried to save time on those through approximations. I still had a minute and few seconds to go through the last question, which was a simple enough inequality question. I knew the answer when I looked at it because I had seen a similar question somewhere in my preparation. However, the fatigue, pressure, and distraction took their toll, and I marked an option that I knew was incorrect the moment I pressed the ‘Next’ button! I finished the section with 2 seconds to spare. Phew.

IR - A few tricky and rather lengthy Multi-Source Reasoning questions popped up at the start, and knowing that this section isn’t adaptive, I spent some time on them and then made some guesses and moved on. The rest of the section was rather uneventful.

AWA - The argument had to do with a government body suggesting hosting an international sporting event in the country, based on the success of a past football event that that country had hosted. Followed the template suggested by chineseburned and made three points against the argument.

As I clicked submit on my writing piece, I covered my eyes with both my hands. I usually am confident about facing results, but this time, there were too many emotions at play - last time’s near-miss, the pressure to get it done this time, all the effort that had gone in - however, when I sneaked through, I saw a 98 in the bottom row of the percentile column. I immediately removed my hands and looked at the screen to see the magic number I’d wanted to see for a while. 750 (Q49, V42, IR 6). A wave of relief rushed through my body, and I sat there admiring the computer screen till the proctor came over and prompted me to accept/reject the score. I accepted the score (obviously), collected my test result, and walked out of the test center with a smile. Received my AWA score today and got a perfect 6.0 (thank you chineseburned).

In hindsight, though I'm satisfied with the performance, it feels bittersweet in terms of section scores. After focusing on Quant and consistently getting 50/51 in GMATClub tests, I hoped to have a similar performance on test day. Also, my Verbal scores in the two prior mocks were 48 and 44, so 42 felt a bit low.
But this also shows why GMAT is such a unique test (and GMAC anyway says that test-day scores are not the truest indicator of someone's ability and might be within 30 points of one's actual ability).

Study Material Review

Manhattan Guides - An exceptional resource indeed. Each guide is easy to follow and covers all the concepts related to the topic in question. The quant guides and the advanced quant guide were beneficial for me, as was the SC guide. I would recommend these as your main theoretical resource both for Verbal and Quant. For Quant, once you have a relatively decent comfort level with the basics, try and complete the Manhattan Advanced Quant Guide. I found that this book helped with my conceptual clarity and my test-taking ability for this section.

GMAT Club Math Book - I used this book once I had gone through the Manhattan Guides. At under 150 pages, this book is the most succinct way to the most thorough GMAT Quant prep. The content focuses more on problem-solving and GMAT-readiness. You’ll find basic formulae, tips, tricks, unique applications, and everything else here. It’s both a great add-on to your basic Quant resource and a go-to resource for revision.

OGs - A must do. The focus while solving the OGs, in my opinion, should not be on speed but rather clarity and accuracy. If the OG seems easier to you, like it did to me, it would be a good idea to skip it and instead solve Verbal Review and Quant Review OGs. This is a good foundation to start understanding what the GMAT tests and how it does that.

Veritas Question Bank and eGMAT Scholaranium - Highly recommended. The quality of questions, especially in the Verbal section, is really high in both the QBs. You'll be sufficiently challenged, and the analysis and answer explanations are clear and straightforward.

GMAT Club Question Bank - The best resource for Advanced level Quant practice. That said, it is not a resource to be used only in advanced stages of your prep or once you've finished other 'basic' resources. I made this mistake, and perhaps if I had overcome my fear of the 'level' of this resource and solved it earlier, I'd have developed a much clearer understanding of both basic and advanced Quant concepts.

Target Test Prep Quant Question Bank - A great resource if you are facing fundamental challenges in Quant. I love the approach of dedicating a huge number of questions to each topic, segregated by difficulty. It would be ideal to use this resource early on in your prep to develop confidence in each topic. The quality of questions is good, test analytics are comprehensive, and I especially like the feature where you can mark the nature of your mistake.

Tips for Success (Questions to ponder on)

• Should you work hard, or should you work smart?
  First, work hard, then bring smartness in. On the GMAT, it pays to ‘know things’; however, the real dividends are reaped by those who master the art of test-taking. Think of this as a three-layer pyramid.
  
  • The bottom third consists of knowing and learning all the basic concepts across all subsections - you just can’t do without this foundation.
  • The middle layer is of application. This translates to solving many problems so that the concepts you’ve learned are drilled into your brain. The more you practice, the clearer the concepts will get. Without practice, you’ll never identify areas of weakness, and hence never overcome those. Without doing full mocks regularly, you’ll never build up stamina for the GMAT. You’ll probably not feel confident walking into the test because you’ve not simulated this scenario enough times before. This is mostly hard work, brute force, and persistence. This middle layer connects your foundation to the peak.
  • The topmost layer - the peak - is more art. This is where smart work plays a major role. Refining your test-taking strategies, maintaining error logs, tweaking your CR or SC approach, learning how to speed-read through RC passages, tips and tricks to improve time management, reading others’ test experiences to know what to do and what not to do, and so on. This top third consists of anything that will help you find another gear and push the needle when you thought it couldn’t be pushed any further.
    And the pyramid will only be complete (and look beautiful) when you bring these three layers together.
  
  
• Should you be an optimist or a pessimist while preparing for GMAT?
  Optimism will help you start preparing for GMAT; pessimism will help you continue preparing for GMAT. To elaborate, at first, it will look like there’s a lot you need to do, and the task (your target goal) will almost feel insurmountable (if you’ve set it ambitiously enough). However, you’ll have to believe that you can do it. Otherwise, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed and drop out altogether. That’s where you need to be optimistic.
  But as you progress, always look for improvement. Don’t be content if you’re doing good. Good is good, but better is better. Think of that. Get over your practice test results as quickly as you can. There’s no point in sulking about a bad mock result or feeling too happy about a good mock result. Neither of those is your actual GMAT result. From the bad performances, learn about your mistakes. From the good ones, learn about the things you did right/differently. Being pessimistic will make you uncomfortable. And being uncomfortable will make you better. And persistently chasing ‘better’ will help you deliver your best on the test day.
  
  
• Should you have a favorite child (subsection)?
  I have seen people talking about their strongest subsections and weakest subsections. I discarded this notion early on in my prep and resisted picking it up throughout my prep. The GMAT will test you equally on your ability in each subsection, and so it pays more to be an all-rounder. Here’s how you can go about doing this:
  
  • At first, you will obviously have to dedicate more time practicing your weaker sub-sections. Remember, this categorization is based on your baseline performance and not on perception.
  • Try bringing all your subsection abilities to similar levels. The faster you do this, the better.
  • From them on, work on each subsection equally hard. Don’t do only SC for 4 hours every day just because you suck at it, and don’t ignore PS because you feel you’re a math wizard. You might well be one, but unless you’re consistently challenging yourself with new problems, you’ll risk falling out of the zone. Remember: Be an all-rounder, and always stay in the zone!
  • Practice both Quant and Verbal each day.
  • Practice till you can’t practice anymore. Then practice some more.
  • Maintain an error log. Some other log suggestions (for Quant): ‘Concepts to remember,’ ‘Unique Conceptual Applications,’ ‘Shortcut Solutions,’ ‘My Most Common Mistakes.’
  • Take each mock test as if it were the actual GMAT, and the actual GMAT will feel like one of the mock tests. This means doing a full-length mock, including IR and AWA. (yes, none of us likes to do that, but that’s what needs to be done!)
  
  
• How to reduce your GMAT test-taking entropy? And why and how you should introduce a little anarchy at times?
  I talked about reducing entropy in GMAT preparation - this means simulating test conditions as closely as possible, in every practice session, day after day. It should reflect in the smallest of actions you'll take, including the way you're going to set up your answer pad (I used the Yellow Pad technique suggested in this article : https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-gmat-time-management-part-3/)
  
  But personally, I also mixed things up by practicing at odd hours or at times when I wasn’t at peak energy levels. This approach was my worst-case scenario preparation. There are chances that things can go wrong on the test day - you might not get enough sleep the night before, you aren’t able to focus as well, you had a massive fight/break up with your partner a day before the test (yikes). At times, I practiced late at night; sometimes, I practiced in a noisy environment such as a public cafe; heck, I practiced even if I argued with my girlfriend that day! ). Basically, you need to push every lever and condition your brain to provide optimal output even when the input might be sub-optimal.
  
  
• How to create a support system when you are preparing for GMAT?
  
  • Friends - The best way to make yourself accountable - tell a few close friends about your GMAT prep. This will serve two purposes - when they make weekend plans, and you consistently ditch them, they won’t get offended; additionally, if you do decide to let loose, they will remind you that you need to prep for GMAT!
  • Study partners - I didn’t have study buddies, but I did keep in touch with a few aspirants I came across on some GMAT Club forums. It both kept me motivated and made me feel competitive.
  • Family/Partner - They are usually the pillar of unconditional support you need when things don’t go your way during the prep (and there would definitely be times when things won’t go your way)
  • GMAT Club Community - There are so many wise and helpful people here! Use the community; it’s a resource that I would definitely vouch for!
  • You - Talk to yourself. Not in a loony sort of way that makes people doubt your sanity, though you may lose bits of it by the time you’re done with GMAT. But you will have to keep introspecting about things as you prepare. You will have to internalize approaches, remember mistakes, counter self-deprecation and negativity, push your own limits, and give yourself pep talks now and then. And all this won’t happen if you aren’t self-aware and self-communicating.
  • Additionally, if you have flatmates/roommates, it’s a good idea to tell them about your GMAT plans so that they are aware of your study schedule and hopefully cooperate with you in minimizing distractions/disturbances.
  
  
• How to make your GMAT prep more cost-effective?
  As a business graduate, you’ll invariably be required to focus on ROI and generate the most bang for the buck. (And from my experience of working in a start-up, sometimes you’ll be expected to make a bang without any buck to spare!)
  So, how do you implement that in your GMAT preparation? Here are a few things I did which might help you bring down the financial costs associated with the test:
  
  • I borrowed or sourced a digital copy (PDF) of all the study materials I have listed above. They weren’t the latest edition, but I think they did a reasonably good job.
  • I used every single and credible free mock test available (check out the GMAT Club page that details this). Additionally, I was kind of lucky to get the Veritas test series for a steal.
  • I used free Question Banks from Veritas and eGMAT. The Veritas QB has about 250 Verbal and 250+ Quant high-quality questions. The eGMAT scholaranium has 200 Verbal questions and around 150+ Quant questions. That’s around 850 high-quality questions, with easy to use dashboards and easy to understand explanations, for free!
  • I split the cost of test packs and subscription costs of online question banks with another GMAT aspirant.
  Overall, I spent under $125 on study material prep and test series, across 4 months of preparation and two GMAT attempts. Pretty good ROI, in my opinion.
  
  
• What should you do in the days leading up to the GMAT?
  This is quite subjective. More experienced people in this community have spoken on this topic, and I feel their advice might apply to more people than my own methods. I tried two completely different methods in the weeks leading up to each of my two attempts, and neither was necessarily bad. Some general tips would be - eat well, sleep well, hydrate well; stay off social media as much as possible (for focus and energy preservation); leverage your support system (see above) emotionally and mentally; do hygiene logistic roundups - location of the test center, mode of transport, travel time estimation, etc.
  
  
• Should you reattempt the GMAT?
  The answer to this will depend on these two factors:
  
  • What was your goal score, and how far did you land from that score?
    From personal experience, I would say that one should accept a score up to -20 points of their target score. This margin should increase or decrease based on the original target's ambitiousness (please accept a 750 if you were aiming for an 800 ). I would say, always have a target score and a floor score: the score at which you’ll call it a day. Going into my first attempt, even though I was aiming for a 750, my floor score was 730 (based on my own profile strength, the programs I was aiming for, etc.). I knew I would reattempt at anything below 730, and while it sucked to see a 720 on the screen, I immediately knew what my course of action from there on was.
    It’s easy to get sucked into the ego-race around GMAT scores these days, and you wouldn’t know when you’ve crossed the fine-line between ‘growth mindset’ and ‘mindless pursuit.’ Which brings me to...
    
  • What is the opportunity cost of covering this gap? What is the marginal utility of another attempt?
    The closer you land to your target score (or range), the greyer it gets. Are you willing to prep another 4 weeks aiming to get a 20 point increase? Do you know what exactly would it take to break your plateau and minimize any factors that might stop you and that may not be in your control? Could you use these 4 weeks to boost another aspect of your application instead, and do you think doing that might have a higher impact on application success? Remember, GMAT is but one aspect of your application. Think of time as money, and spend it like you’re buying success with it.

PS: I’m a big believer in Karma, and since I received a lot of help, guidance, and support from this community, I would love to pay that forward. So feel free to DM me for a chat/advice/tips/clarifications etc.

I wish you all the best for your GMAT journey and would leave you with this last piece of a pep talk (any "Art of War" fans in the house? ) - “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war”

PPS - If this post helped you in any way, show your love with kudos. : please